The Last Celestial

Prologue

Four years ago...

The smell of urine and faeces stuck to the humid air and Lois choked on it, her lungs desperate for oxygen.

Lois pulled on the cold chains to attempt to break free. She arched her back and brought her feet onto the wall her arms were chained to. She pushed the wall with her legs and pulled on the chains with her arms.

Lois squirmed and felt her arms extend to the point they felt numb.

Her feet slipped and her nails that overgrown her toes scraped the walls. As she fell back, her knees grazed the walls. The chains at her arms stopped her from slamming onto the concrete. Instead her arms bounced like strings on a puppet and Lois felt the pop in her shoulder.

Lois bit her lip to stop her from screaming and waking her new master and mistress. Gods forbid they heard her or remembered she existed. Since the moment they bought her, a few weeks ago? Months? Lois can't remember. The time, the days, all of it seems so foreign when you are kept in a dirty cell with no access to sunlight or fresh air.

The pads at her feet were torn and bleeding from walking barefoot, mud began seeping through the stinging cuts.

"They are old chains. But not old enough to help you escape," the spine-chilling familiar voice echoes through the claustrophobic, grey room. They have heard her after all, Lois shut her eyes to stop her tears.

Click.

The dim and flickering yellow light bulb turned on and Lois' eyes burned slightly in the blinking light. She didn't dare spin around. She could see the shadows on the concrete wall her forehead leant against. One was larger than the other. A creaking sound pierced through Lois' ears and she guessed that it was the door to her cell closing.

"You have woken the children," Mistress Isobel had said, her voice cold. "You weren't trying to escape were you?"

Lois heard as her master took hold of something, he didn't give Lois a warning nor time to process the sharp whistling sound that sliced through the air, before colliding with Lois' back.

Snap.

Lois howled as the whip crossed her back. She arched her back towards the wall. Head leaning back to ignore the dark circles in her vision. Heavy breaths escaped her lips. She touched the cold wall with her forehead. The wall aiding her burning body.

"Black leather. 38 inches. It's quite plain actually... but very good to induce pain upon someone," Lois could feel Elijah smile at her bare back.

Her heavy breaths steadied and she let out a small chuckle.

"Go to hell jackass," She spat and straightened herself, facing the wall. It was the first in a long time she had spoken to him, or to anyone, that way. She almost regretted it. But if she was going to die here, she might as well make it a nuisance for them.

Elijah bit at the inside of his cheek. No one ever speaks to him like that. He nodded his head in anger, smiled in frustration and scratched his neck.

The next whip cut through the air with a vicious scream.

Crack.

Lois screamed at the snap of her shoulder bones. Tears welled up in her eyes and her breathing became staggered as her lungs couldn't keep up. The whip was stuck to her back. She could feel its daggers stuck in her flesh, blood creeping to the surface of her skin.

"28 inches. Brown leather with very useful blades," Elijah announced as Isobel giggled behind him. "You see it not only cuts the skin of the victim... but when you pull it out-"